‘How long’s he been like this, Steve?’ Will voiced his first question with just the right mix of authority and empathy. He obviously knew the pair and was leading them past the reception desk into a well-equipped treatment room. He laid the child down, adjusted the examination couch so the boy was sitting and placed an oximeter on his finger.
‘No more than fifteen minutes. Jake was with me mates at the oval, watching the game, and they called me off the field.’ The man pulled down his son’s sock to reveal an angry red swelling just above his ankle. Sophie could see similar, smaller lesions on his arms.
‘Bee sting,’ he added, as if that explained everything. ‘We know he’s allergic, but the worst he’s had in the past has been a rash.’ He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘He’s never been this bad. It came on real quick. He can hardly breathe. We were going to the hospital but I saw your car—’
Steve was close to tears and began hyperventilating.
The last thing they needed in a situation where the boy should command Will’s full attention was to have to deal with the father’s panic attack as well.
Sophie felt her own tension climbing. The child was barely conscious and his breathing was becoming more laboured as each second passed. Will appeared remarkably calm.
‘Sit down, Steve,’ Will said coolly but firmly. ‘Jake’s going to be fine but I need to check him over.’ He glanced in Sophie’s direction. ‘Can you organise a paediatric mask with high-flow oxygen?’ He pointed to an emergency trolley next to an oxygen cylinder. Everything—medications, procedure packs, resuscitation equipment—was all labelled clearly and easy to find. ‘And draw up …’ He paused for a moment, calculating the crucial dose of lifesaving medication based on the boy’s estimated weight. ‘Point two of adrenaline for intramuscular injection.’
‘Do you want nebulised adrenaline as well?’ Sophie asked, trying to think ahead. She’d rarely treated emergencies in her father’s practice but remembered the protocol from her hospital work. ‘And an IV set?’ she added as she positioned the mask on Jake’s pale little face.
Will nodded. He worked incredibly quickly but gave the impression he was taking one quiet step at a time. Sophie drew up the medication, double-checked the dose and handed it to Will, who jabbed the needle into the boy’s upper thigh so rapidly he hardly had time to respond. She could feel the tension decreasing in the room at about the same rate as the dusky grey colour in Jake’s swollen lips began to turn the lightest shade of pink.
Will looked at the small device that measured oxygen levels in the blood. ‘Ninety-four per cent,’ he said as he placed a stethoscope on the little boy’s chest and then checked his airway. The wheezing eased a little, but the movement of the muscles in Jake’s abdomen and neck suggested he still had to work hard to get air in and out. Fortunately the risk of his larynx closing over completely had passed.
Will inserted an IV line while Sophie set up the nebuliser and together they stabilised the five-year-old to the point where Will had time to talk to Steve. He pulled up a chair opposite him.
‘Jake’s over the worst, Steve, but he’s not out of the woods yet. He needs monitoring in hospital and I’m going to call an ambulance. He also needs blood tests and will probably go home with an EpiPen, possibly an asthma puffer as well. Do you know what an EpiPen is?’
‘Yeah, I think you told us about it the first time Jake was stung. It’s the injection you keep with you all the time, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you want me to ring the ambulance?’ Sophie offered.
‘Thanks, the local number is on the wall above the phone,’ Will said with a grateful smile. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
A short time later, while the adults sat drinking coffee, crisis over, waiting for the ambulance, Jake slowly and steadily improved. Sophie marvelled at how composed Will was as he chatted to Steve.
‘Daddy,’ Jake said suddenly in a clear, loud voice as he pulled off the mask and frowned. All eyes turned towards him.
‘What’s the matter?’ Steve said, a look of panic returning to his face.
‘That goal you kicked … just before three-quarter time.’
The adults exchanged glances and Steve smiled for the first time since he’d arrived.
‘Yeah, what about it?’
‘It was awesome.’
Steve grinned with obvious pride and Will chuckled.
‘You think so?’
Jake took a couple of rapid breaths as he raised his hand for a high five with his father. ‘The best.’
The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and after it had left with its two passengers, Will turned to Sophie.
‘That was an impromptu example of general practice in Prevely Springs. Think you can handle it?’
Coping with the work wasn’t a problem for Sophie. She was looking forward to the challenge. The predicament she faced was how she was going uphold her promise, the vow she’d confidently uttered when she and her best friend had made a toast to her new life … without the complication of men.
She had the feeling it wasn’t going to be easy.
‘I’ll give it my best shot,’ she said.
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER the ambulance left, Sophie experienced a satisfaction she hadn’t felt since working in the emergency department as a raw, idealistic intern. She had no doubt in her mind that Will had, calmly, without fuss or wanting any praise, saved young Jake’s life.
And she had been part of it.
‘Do you deal with many emergencies?’ she asked as she brought two mugs of fresh coffee into the treatment room where Will was tidying up.
He took one of the mugs and smiled.
‘About one or two a week.’
‘Across the full spectrum?’
Sophie perched herself on the examination couch and Will sat in the seat recently vacated by Jake’s father.
‘Pretty well. There’s probably more than the norm of physical violence, drug overdoses, that kind of thing. The clinic operates a little like a country outpost, without the problem of distance and isolation. I do my best to stabilise patients who need hospital care before sending them on.’
Sophie thought of how different it was from her father’s practice.
‘Where I worked in Sydney, the patients are more likely to ring the ambulance first in life-threatening situations … To save time.’
Will’s dark eyes clouded and he looked past Sophie into the distance before he refocused.
‘A lot of my patients have had bad experiences with hospitals, and doctors who don’t know them. And I don’t blame the hospital staff making judgements on appearances. We all do it …’
The appraisal took only a second or two but Sophie felt Will’s gaze flick from her high-heel-clad feet to the top of her tousled head, taking in everything in between. She suddenly became self-conscious about her appearance and the impression she’d made when he’d first seen her.
Before Sophie could think of a reply, Will had downed the last of his coffee and stood, stuffing his stethoscope into his pocket. He looked impatient to leave.
‘I’ll take you round to the flat. It’s nothing flash but is clean, has the basics and is about twenty minutes’ drive from here.’
Will’s